Genesis 25: 19-34 (links validated 6/6/23)

Years ago a friend contacted me after reading one of my sermons from a series I did on The Book of Genesis. This was a man who had experienced a lot of brokenness in his family and particularly in things involving a couple of his children. In my sermons on Genesis—as in what I have here in this CEP sermon commentary on our first Jacob and Esau story in Genesis 25—I noted that there was a lot of drama in these stories and that so often families in the Bible are what today we would label as “dysfunctional.” My friend noted that this got him to looking at a lot of other stories in the Bible involving families and he was struck by how few of them were intact. As I noted in another recent commentary, some Bible stories that center on families look a whole lot less like the harmonious folks on The Waltons or Little House on the Prairie and more like the cut-throat families one saw in other TV shows like Dallas or Dynasty (and though I have not seen any of it, does the more recent TV series Succession fit here too?). My friend took comfort and solace in this fact. God maybe does not abandon us because we don’t have our acts together all the time, including in the context of our families. This insight felt to my friend like a grace. And it was.

In his marvelous book that remains a good investment for any biblical preacher or teacher, Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who’s Who (Harper & Row, 1979) Frederick Beuchner writes, “Luckily for Jacob, God doesn’t love people because of who they are, but because of who he is. It’s on the house is one way of saying it and it’s by grace is another, just as it was by grace that it was Jacob of all people who became not only the father of the twelve tribes of Israel but the many times great grandfather of Jesus of Nazareth, and just as it was by grace that Jesus of Nazareth was born into this world at all.”

Fraternal rivalry can be fierce, and the rivalry of twins might be magnified, with both knowing how close they were to being in the other’s elder or younger position. One might expect brothers to get on, but fraternal rivalry is the source of many religious and political conflicts. Such rivalry is a motif of Augustine’s City of God, where the story of Remus and Romulus, another set of twin brothers, is of central significance to the founding of the first “Earthly City” of Rome (City of God, XV.5). Here Augustine distinguishes between the fratricide of Remus and Romulus and that of another set of Biblical brothers, Cain and Abel. Whereas the case of Remus and Romulus is the primordial and archetypal case of the division and conflict within the city of man, Cain and Abel is a justified case of conflict between the City of God and the City of Man...

I read recently about Christina and Allan of Sanford, Maine. On February 2, 1995, Christina, age 14, and Allen, age 16, became parents. Neither Christina nor Allen have a job. They don't have a car. They have little schooling. Allan tried to return to school but couldn't stay awake after being up all night with the baby. Christina's mother was a teenage mom. She had a tough life. She says: "Christina and Allan don't know what they got themselves into. They thought it was fun and games, but she lost her childhood. It's all gone." Christina finds her life "boring, boring, boring.…" A big day for Allan and Christina is to go to the mall to ride the escalators and to go to the arcade. On one visit, the arcade management wouldn't let Christina in. Allan says: The sign said "Sixteen or parent's permission." So I pointed to her belly and said, "I'm the parent." In June, Christina and Allan turned 15 and 17. There was no cake. There were no presents. "No nothing," says Christina. Recently Christina was worried that she was pregnant again. She had quit taking her pills. She admits that not taking the pills was stupid, but she pointed to the baby and said, "I wanted another one of those."...

("From Frederick Buechner's Peculiar Treasures: A Biblical Who's Who: 'Esau was so hungry he could hardly see straight when his younger twin, Jacob, bought his birthright for a bowl of chili. He was off hunting rabbits when Jacob conned their old father, Isaac, into giving him the blessing that should have been Esau's by right of primogeniture...")

In this message I’ve alluded to Frank Sinatra’s famous anthem of rugged, self-reliant, almost arrogant individualism, “I Did It My Way.” It makes a powerful modern connection with the way Jacob conducted himself in the text for today. Those with good sound systems and an audience that appreciates the use of AV in a message might want to play it before or during the message. My frequent negative references to Jacob wrestling with God might irritate some members of your church who are fans of WWE or who are involved in high school and college wrestling. It might be worthwhile to compare and contrast the wrestling that is done for entertainment or for healthy competition with Jacob’s wrestling that aimed to take control of his own destiny.

Hendrick ter Brugghen has painted that moment. In his Caravaggesque style (to oversimplify, that means strong lights and darks) he shows the two brothers in the foreground, a table of food between them. In the background are the two parents, each standing behind their favored child.

("Hope Morgan Ward, the United Methodist Bishop of Mississippi, was the guest Bible Study leader and preacher at our recent Annual Conference session. Her daddy was a Carolina farmer. She said he valued careful planting practices, using quality seeds, and working in good soil..." and other illustrations)

When we depend upon ourselves, when we depend on what is called "works righteousness", we only set ourselves up to fail. "Amy, 15, had always gotten straight 'A's' in school, and her parents were extremely upset when she got a 'B' on her report card. 'If I fail in what I do,' Amy told her parents, 'I fail in what I am.' That message was part of Amy's suicide note." Dr. Darold Treffert of the Winnebago Mental Institute in Wisconsin uses this story to illustrate how American teenagers are being victimized by what he calls "The American Fairy Tale." This fairy tale has two themes. FIRST: "that more possessions mean more happiness" And SECOND: "that a person who does or produces more is more important." (3) B. Dr. Treffert is right. I'm sorry if this is how you believe, but that's not the Biblical witness. That's works righteousness. Amy didn't need to die because she wasn't perfect. We don't need to be perfect. The Bible teaches that it is not what we do but what has been done for us that matters. We can't earn our salvation. We aren't redeemed because our prayers are so wonderful. We aren't reconciled to God because we work so hard in the Church. We aren't justified by all of our good deeds or the committees we serve on. If we could earn our own salvation, then Jesus wouldn't have had to die on the cross. It is nothing that we have done on our own. It is simply what Christ has done for us...